Source: WRAL
In the lead-up to North Carolina’s 2024 gubernatorial primary election, a stark divide between the Democratic and Republican candidates on their views of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol remains evident.
The country just marked the third anniversary of the insurrection earlier this month, and the debate over that day’s events and the fallout is still (somehow) contested.
While Democratic hopefuls like North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein and former Supreme Court Justice Mike Morgan denounce the Capitol attack as a “treacherous insurrection” and call for accountability in the courts, their Republican counterparts, including Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, downplay the attack’s severity and even promote conspiracy theories about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Both the presidential and gubernatorial primaries are contests whose outcomes will depend on Trump’s popularity and his endorsement of Robinson.
The attack on the Capitol left five people dead and put Trump under the microscope – and criminal investigation – for his actions and behavior leading up to the insurrection and in the aftermath. The twice-impeached former president is facing 91 criminal charges across four cases and is still asking for your vote even though he won’t believe the results unless he wins.
Trump has been complaining about the election being stolen from him since nearly the moment the last polling place closed in America on Election Day more than three years ago. The complaints have gotten him nowhere and could end up harming his candidacy more than helping it, Doug Heye, a DC-based Republican strategist from North Carolina told WRAL.
“Republicans would be massively better off, focusing on those issues that have Joe Biden‘s approval rating in the tank,” said Heye. “Other issues are at best distractions to be avoided.”
A day after the attack, Robinson put out a statement that blamed the insurrection on “rogue individuals” and said that the “acts were not patriotic.” He also unironically attacked politicians for “creating this environment” where “people believe that … they can and should commit radical acts of violence in order to push an agenda that they believe in.” Robinson wasn’t referring to himself or Trump, who literally directed protesters to head to the Capitol on the day of the insurrection.
Robinson and Trump have become friends over the last few years and the criminally indicted former president has praised Robinson multiple times and in return, Robinson has defended Trump with every fiber of his being. Robinson has repeatedly minimized the Jan. 6 attack and rejected any suggestion that Trump should bear any responsibility for it or be held accountable.
According to WRAL, Robinson referred to Jan. 6 as a “minor thing” at an East Wake Republican Club meeting in December 2023. At a Mitchell County event on July 21, 2022, Robinson described the insurrection as a “small debacle” and inaccurately said that only “one unarmed white woman was killed.”
In a July 12, 2022, Facebook post, Robinson called those who were arrested during the Jan. 6 attack “political prisoners.”
On the other side of the aisle, Stein, the leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate, has had no issue labeling the events of Jan. 6, 2021, exactly what they were.
Shortly after the riot, Stein’s office asked the public for information about North Carolinians who may have participated in the attack.
“Last week’s violent insurrection violated one of the most sacred principles of our democracy — the peaceful transfer of power as a result of a free and fair election,” Stein said in a press release at the time. “As Attorney General, I will do everything in my power, alongside my state and federal counterparts, to hold accountable the people who participated in this violence and broke the law.”
Robinson’s campaign declined WRAL’s request for comment on his past remarks about the Capitol attack.
Stein did respond to WRAL, saying that Robinson’s “conspiracy theories are un-American.”
“Lieutenant Governor Robinson — who has a history of promoting political violence – downplayed the violent insurrection and falsely claims that Joe Biden ‘stole’ the 2020 election,” Stein said. “As Governor, I will be a fierce defender of democracy and the right to vote.”
Morgan described the Jan. 6 attack as “a treacherous insurrection provoked by Donald Trump in a wretched selfish attempt, executed through misguided zealots, to retain the office of President.”
